The Moving Wall, Vietnam's Memorial came to Scott City this past week. On Sunday we were able to take my children over and explain to them its meaning. Memorials are a great thing. A people that know where they come from, will know where they are going. My son Steven was quite moved by the sheer number of names of men that had given their lives in service of the greatest nation the earth has ever seen.
However, our Local New York Times Editor sees things just a little differently. An editorial was written this past week on why the Vietnam War was based on bad policy (sound familiar). Never mind that Communism was spreading eastward to the Pacific Ocean causing nation after nation to fall under its grip. Never mind that millions of people were being slaughtered under such regimes. It was just bad policy.
Let me give an alternate perspective. The Vietnam War, despite the fact that too many politicians ran the war instead of Generals, was a good idea. We actually won the war and lost it ourselves.
We won. Yes, I said we won. The major offensives towards the end of the war had caused the North Vietnamese to be so de-moralised as to be on the verge of giving up. So we won.
We lost. Notice I didn't say they won. I said "we lost". We lost due to a culture war that used the Vietnam War as a political battlefield. Men like John Kerry and actresses like Jane Fonda willfully and purposefully encouraged the enemy. With the "Drive-By Media" (as Rush likes to say) on their side, public opinion about the War began to change. As a result of the actions of the Left in this country, North Vietnam was reinvigorated and began to launch new offensives. As a direct result of the Left in this country, millions of people were slaughtered by the North Vietnamese. Somehow the caring Left didn't seem to care.
In the early 90s, our country was again at war. This time we were fighting a Muslim Nation's dictator. When the War ended, President Bush Sr. said in a press conference he believed he had not gone far enough. I have often wondered if it was a result of the "Drive-By" Media?
President Bush Jr. is now engaged in a war that must be won at all costs. Yet history seems to be repeating itself. Local New York Times Editorialists seem to think everything is America's fault. It is just bad policy. They will do anything to bring America down all the while thinking they are making things better, history and facts notwithstanding.
Can America really trust Left-Wing thought in this country? Can we really allow Iran to have Nukes? Should we stand by and watch Terrorists take over other countries only to have to fight them on another day? Perhaps John Kerry's self-deception that Muslims will somehow just "get along" with the West will come true in his dreams. Reality, however, will soon settle in when he wakes to a 9/12.
You can always argue over particular decisions, but Bush's policy must continue. In fact, I would argue he does not go far enough. Islam is not a morally neutral religion. It is seeking to advance itself via means of immigration and Terrorism. It must be stopped. There are other means for Islam to win than by simply bombing buildings, and they know it. Apparently, Local New York Times Editorialists do not.
4 comments:
Its funny how the left is now anti-war in Iraq, yet Kerry and every liberal wanted war at the time we went into Iraq. So I dare ask the left - At what point should we have left Iraq. You wanted to go there just like Bush in the beginning. So if we shouldn't be there now, at what point should we have left and what would that have accomplished?
The left usually will answer with something like "we were tricked by Bush into going into war". Tricked?... Bush tricked you with tales of W.M.D.s?.... Thats all it takes to get you to fight a war that you really don't want to?... A little trickery?... Wow, thank God your not in the white house.
That being said, I want my brothers back home from Iraq. I hope we can accomplist stability soon. We have to realize that Iraq is middle east and there will always be some degree of instability.
Shelby Steele's article on White Guilt may explain why so many Americans can't understand why we haven't won yet.
http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110008318
We are fighting a minimalist war. Peace only comes through victory. The military is designed to break things and kill people. Yet we want to put on trial military members for killing people in the heat of battle.
So if I were there. I simply would kill anyone. That way we would lose, but atleast I wouldn't have to spend 40 years at Ellsworth.
It is simply silly what we are doing. We are trying to make everyone like us. Until the Left and the Right (men like Bush included) figure that out (I would think dealing with the Left for 6 years now he would have figured that out) we simply will not succeed.
It is time to stop exporting the worst of American culture to those countries and start exporting American ideals that make this country great.
If they don't like us, too bad. We are who we are!
God Bless
You've written two things I especially appreciate:
"Never mind that Communism was spreading eastward to the Pacific Ocean causing nation after nation to fall under its grip. Never mind that millions of people were being slaughtered under such regimes. It was just bad policy."
Yes, you're absolutely right. Everyone forgets now what the Communist threat was like. The Cold War was very real, and our prospects for winning were not at all secure. In the meantime, as you say, thousands and millions were losing their freedom, and often their lives, to despotic regimes.
"It is simply silly what we are doing. We are trying to make everyone like us."
That's exactly right. I hear people complain all the time about the low regard other countries have for America now. So what? Is this high school, that we need to be constantly weighing our social status? As long as we are still able to accomplish our foreign policy goals, who cares what the rest of the world thinks of us? Let's not forget that we don't always have a high opinion of them. Should they be crying about that, too?
In reply to "the forester" who wrote
"As long as we are still able to accomplish our foreign policy goals, who cares what the rest of the world thinks of us?"
then I must reply that
1) This American vet, and Son of The Revolution, cares about what others in the world think of us because -
a) We Americans do not populate a nation that is unaffacted by the actions by ourselves, or of others.
b) Forester's attitude is publicly dismissive of others, and hence supports other's ill will toward us, hence fostering violence toward him and us.
c) Idealogues, just like dogmatists, limit their own abilties to think by simply being idealogues and dogmatists, and show examples of rigid thinking to others thereby keeping us all stuck in a competitive and confrontational world.
2) Our nation was founded on higher principles than those described by "the forester".
For example, our Declaration of Independence, written for all the world to see from a criminal king, says "that AMONG these (unalienable rights) are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." That means that we are not limited only the rights enumerated, but also have the freedom, and the right, whenever we see fit, to also delare other rights unalienable.
2) The word "we" is the first word in our Constitution which was written to serve us across a world that is constantly changing.
It is in our constantly changing world that we, who are the current "us" and "we", must respond to our challenges, not by shallow and shortsighted means that the whole world can see, but by living up to our history of being the nation who knowlingly accept the difficult work of being the nation that has been the beacon in the world to a better life for all.
Small means may be "more profitable" or "easier to understand". But being a beacon to humanity is our historic right, challenge and responsibility.
And this American does NOT want to make any others like us, but only to see that all people can operate from the goodness within us all.
Dan McGarigle
El Segundo, CA
10/08/2006
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